ODDS AND ENDS.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 166, 22 October 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

ODDS AND ENDS.

‘ If,’said an old iisherman, ‘ I wanted to catch one simpleton, I would hook him with a bribe ; if I wished to catch twenty, I would bait them with promises; but if I desired to catch a hundred, I would poison them with flattery.

Joseph Cook calls Niagara Falls a‘dateless roar. ’ H e has not yet invented a term to apply to .the Niagara hackman, whose roar is of more recent date. Nothing less than a six-syllabled word, with sharp corners and jagged edges, will do them justice.

The toughness of a spring chicken is not an infallible sign that it is three springs old. It may have been a precocious chicken, and have been struck with the pedestrian mania in its infancy. That would account for the extraordinary development and toughness of its muscles.

‘Johnny, run over and ask how old Mrs. .Jones is this morning.’ Johnnj runs over, and Mrs. Jones coining to the door herself, he eagerly says : ‘Ma wants to know how old you are this morning ?’ Mrs. Jones slams the door in his face, and Johnny goes back and tells his mother that Mrs. Jones wouldn’t toll her age, and ‘ was as mad as fury about it. ’

The wife to her husband : “Oh, how good you are—how generous—how thoughtful it was of you to buy me this lovely stuff dress’’ ‘But, dearest, do you not know that the unhappy silk-weavers of Lyons are starving for bread ?’— ‘ I prefer doing a little good; humble though it may be. to gratifyiim myself. Take this splendid merino dress back to the shop and make them change it—a simple black silk will do for mo. Let us remember the poor. ’ A clergyman lately crossing the Atlantic became alarmed in a storm, and asked the captain if there was any danger. The captain led him to the forecastle and told him to listen. He was shocked to hear the sailors swearing vigorously, and expressed his horror. The captain merely replied, 1 Do you think these men would swear in such a manner if there was any real danger?’ The parson seemed satislied and retired. A day or two after, during a still severer storm, the captain saw the clergyman proceeding with difficulty to the forecastle, and, on his return, heard him exclaim, ‘Thank heaven! they’re swearing yet. ’

Lever used to tell with inlinito drollery the following story of Mr. McGlashau, his Dublin publisher, who was a Scotchman. At a certain dinner, fearing to be made ‘ fou ' by the wild Irish authors and scribblers, he left the table, having taken his fair share of wine, to join the ladies in the drawing-room. After a while the company heard unearthly noises in the pantry, just behind the diningroom. They listened and they wondered. What could it bo ? Wore there realy ghosts iu the house, as had been whispered in its ancient traditions ? But, summoning courage they went <>i mintte, and they found that worthy McGlashau had, under the impression that he was going up-stairs to the ladies ascended shelf after shelf of the pantry, and was at that moment lying at full leugth on the uppermost, kicking furiously at the ceiling and side-walls, and expressing the utmost surprise that he could not ‘get up-stairs.’

G ood Night.—lf a home be happy, whether the owners possess a patch of ground of one or a thousand acres, they are in the end wealthy beyond mathematical calcuations. Then how much more lovingly are the folds of night gathered around the happy homes, how much more confidingly do its members repose their weary bodies in the core of divine goodness, soothing their overtaxed minds to the realities of a beautiful dreamland : awakened, refreshed, and invigorated for the coming day’s labour by having bidden their loves ‘Good Night!’ And if during this life wc have faithfully attended to all those little oourtesies, these little soul needs, if we have guarded carefully all 1 God’s hearts’ placed in our keeping, at the close of its brief yet eventful day, how much easier to bid all of our dear beloved ones a linal ‘Good Night.’